I worked on my CBC writing entry this morning and it's pretty much done (I think) but that's not Nano-related, but still it's writing time! Imma put my Nano lines in this evening. Stream of consciousness time! My story almost took a turn I decided I didn't want to pursue over the last couple of days, so now Imma pull it out of that minor pothole and turn it in another direction.

I've realized, after giving my students exercises and reflections to work on about their own work, exactly all the things I don't like about mine... So I am going to finish it, but then after November, I need to do some major reworking. Like completely rewriting it.

I like the plot concept I'm working with, and I like a lot of the world-building I've done, but I don't like my characters or how the narration is coming along. So... I'll finish. And then I'll fix it.

_________________Your heart is a muscle the size of a fistKeep loving, keep fighting

1874 words. I'm worried that I'm tempted by too many tangents and straying off the path/point of my story. I like simple and fairly straightforward things, not really into complexing it all up so I have to choose my tangents carefully! I'm riding them out for now and writing them out and see what survives my next editing blitz. It doesn't hurt to have choices. The main thing is, I seem to have found a good basic story to hang all the rest on and I'm just sort of trying to keep that in sight despite my frequent digressions.

My region does a 24 hour write in every year and I'm doing the whole thing (I couldn't do the overnight last year because I had a job on sunday mornings) again! Currently have written 9000 today in 14 hours.

Today, I've written about 3,200 words. I'm so behind that I've only accrued about 12,000 words total... but I really like what I've written so far and have ideas out the asparagus.

Tomorrow will be a bad day schedule wise between school and work until 7, but I should be able to get a couple good hours in! Wednesday is library book returning/fee paying/check cashing/pie making day but I don't have work so that should be fairly productive. Thursday will take some thought but I should be able to write after the meal and maybe a little before.

I can't wait to see what I have by the end! And I'm going to keep going after.

I spent a couple of days on a regrettable digression I hemmed and hawed about but ultimately succumbed to, just to see where it would lead and just as I suspected--it lead no where. But things are back on track for now, even with the recognition that much of what I've written thus far is going end up on the cutting room floor--again. I write in such a (seemingly) wasteful way but it's just how I get things done.

I got up to 41750 with the 24 hour marathon, am now at 42500 or so. Need to start writing maybe 750-1k a night for the week at least if not more. Do not want to have dig myself into a hole of writing the remaining words in one go!

I'm not going to be able to end my story by the end of this month because I think I only have three or four writing days left (I'm taking weekends off) and my brain is tired, so, so tired of writing right now. I'll just do what I can do over the rest of November and return to the story in the New Year.

Woot! Congrats Tea! Well, I have done more than 1677 words every weekday this month (I think the Nano minimum is 1677 words per day for the month of November to reach 50,000) so while I didn't reach 50,000, I probably added around 30,000 words to my already-existing manuscript. And I have three more days to write. Although I am probably kind of wasting my time now though because what I really need to do next is re-evaluate the story and where it's going but it's nice to have lots of stuff to slash and burn come edit time, so I'll keep going, making my daily quota contributions on the story until November 30.

What is becoming crystal, crystal clear (though I already knew this to begin with) is how much work it's actually going to take to focus, finish and polish this story. I want it tight and clean in the end which means tons of editing for me because I put every idea that comes into my head on the subject down and then eliminate. Although last year, I said it would take me five years, now I feel I can finish it in two (hopefully less, but I don't want to rush things). Let's hope!